Sex Scenes Always Come First to Bal Khabra ❤️‍🔥

I’m sitting next to my mom, wearing a white New York Rangers jersey and a matching navy cap. Blonde waves tumbling down my shoulders. A fairly angelic look splashed across my young face. Most people would think I’m your typical sweet, innocent little girl, enjoying her first hockey game. Only my mom knows that just moments earlier, I was shouting, “FIRE THE REF!” at the ice so loudly that an MSG security guard had to come over and ask me to keep it down.1

What can I say? It can be hard to hide your emotions as a hockey fan. Especially when your team so often gets close to glory but never manages to bring things all the way home.

Hockey has been my favorite sport as long as I can remember. While I love soccer and will indulge in football or baseball, nothing does it for me quite like watching a bunch of big, bulky guys skate around a rink with sticks for a couple of hours. Perhaps occasionally getting angry enough to throw a punch at one another. It’s not the violence that I’m a fan of though, but rather the intensity. Ice hockey is essentially asking athletes to simultaneously be good at hand-eye coordination and skating, all while trying not to get their teeth knocked out. Few other sports are so physically demanding.

It is also the only sport to have completely capture the hearts of romance readers, thanks to screen adaptations of Heated Rivalry by Rachel Riley and Elle Kennedy’s Off-Campus series. Now, women and queer men are flocking to the “boy aquarium” in hopes of seeing the steamy action they read about on the page play out in front of their eyes. As a longtime hockey fan and a romance reader, I’ve been surprised.

Someone who’s been on the hockey-romance trend for a longtime is Bal Khabra, best-selling author of the Off the Ice series focusing on a group of collegiate hockey players and their love interests.

Her latest novel, Embrace, puts fan favorite, happy-go-lucky Kian Ishida in the spotlight. When the fun catches up to Kian and he realizes he may be leaving school without his degree, he joins a study group to try to get his academic record back on track. There, he meets Scarlett Knight, a smart girl trying to escape her own mistakes. Kian has no idea as he starts to form a connection with Scarlett that she is none other than the hockey coach’s daughter, but as bonds intensify and secrets come out, he must decide if Scarlett is a risk he’s willing to take. The most intense of the series by far, Embrace does a fantastic job of exploring heavy, emotional subjects while also giving some beloved characters the send-off they deserve.

I spoke with Bal about her feelings around ending the series that started her writing career, plus why she’s excited for her next project. She also shared how she spends her time away from her writing desk, including indulging in Turkish dramas and a little tennis.

What do you do outside of reading and writing?

Before all of this, I used to work in software. It’s what I thought I would do for the rest of my life, and then writing happened. Reading used to be my thing, but then it became my job, so it’s no longer super fun.

I’m on this weird track of finding my new hobby. I like to figure skate, so I do that about once a week. I’m trying to get better because I forgot how to do it. I also like to be outdoors a lot. I was playing tennis the other day. It’s fun for me to learn new sports. Other than that, I love watching movies and TV shows, particularly Turkish dramas.

How did you go from developing software to writing romance?

Technically, I did my psychology degree first. I was very much into people. Software was my “smart” path. My family wanted me to do it. It was fun, but it didn’t feel like something I could do for the rest of my life. It’s a lot of numbers and no creative outlet.

Romance has always sort of been a part of me. Being Indian, you can’t escape Bollywood movies filled with love and romance. But I think I first started reading romance when Divergent came out and I saw Theo James for the first time. I had this awakening. I dipped into fan fiction on Wattpad and AO3. Then I rediscovered romance again during Covid. I went to my library and read over 200 romance books. It was a little crazy, but I loved it. That’s how I decided I wanted to try writing one myself.

Do you think your relationship to reading romance has changed since you started writing it?

It comes out a lot when I’m editing. If I’m reading a good book while also editing one of mine, I’ll start to obsess over how my sentences could’ve been written in a different way. Even when I watch movies or hear dialogue now, because I focus a lot on dialogue in my books, I start thinking of the writer in the writer’s room. I need to learn to turn it off.

You mentioned reading on Wattpad and AO3 before you got into traditionally published romance novels. What was it about those stories and that community that is maybe different from the mainstream romance industry?

I think on Wattpad it was the fact that there were comments. Which was awesome. You could put a comment after each sentence. Sometimes those made the book because they were so funny.

The community is just different. It’s a little unhinged, but super fun. There are fewer publishing professionals watching so you can do whatever you want.

Have you ever tried writing fan fiction?

Oh my god! I don’t know if I want to expose myself like this, but I was really into Luke Hemmings from 5 Seconds of Summer. So I tried to write something about him. This was my last year of high school. It was, like, one sentence before I gave up and deleted the app. I thought I was never going to read or write again. So no, there’s no fanfic out there by me.

Tell me more about these Turkish dramas. How did you discover them?

I stumbled into it super randomly. I was on Book Twitter a while back, posting little threads about what I was reading. And a lot of people there were talking about Turkish dramas, making edit videos of the characters. Even other authors were into it. I think Tessa Bailey posted about watching them. I was intrigued, so I immediately went and watched one.

The first one I watched is called Sen Çal Kapımı, which translates to You Knock on My Door. It’s super popular. I even added it into my book, having the characters watch it, because I was so obsessed. I still am. I feel like if anybody asks me for Turkish drama recommendations, I tell them to watch that one first. It’s so good.

Turkish dramas do romance so well. The yearning in them is crazy. I feel like in foreign shows, they use less actual physical intimacy and a lot of it is just done through looking or the brush of a hand. Even when they kiss, it’s the tiniest peck. The rest of the stuff is what they’re emphasizing. The story is so fun, too. It’s literally like a romance book come to life. No one does it like Turkish dramas.

You clearly have an athletic side. Figure skating and tennis feel like very different ends of the sports spectrum. How’d you get into both?

Figure skating is fun. It’s a good outlet. I started when I was in school. They used to take us every few months in the winter. In Vancouver, there’s this place called Robson Square. It has an ice rink that opens every winter, so we used to go there for field trips. I wasn’t a young skater. I started learning later. I’m not the best. I can be on it without falling, which is nice. Maybe the fact that I’m Canadian is part of it. Since I wasn’t going to play hockey, this was the best option.

For tennis, I have no idea why I got into it. I just bought a tennis racket this summer. I took lessons because I wondered if I had proper form, and I absolutely did not. There’s an actual way to play it, and I got taught that, which was cool.

Let’s chat about the book. It’s your fourth in the Off the Ice series. Why do you keep coming back to this universe?

It was kind of made up in my mind from the beginning. I knew from the first book that I was going to write about these four guys, and I knew who they were going to end up with. I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way.

I usually read series that start within a friend group, and then each friend gets a book. So when I was writing these, I made it a point to add personalities to the side characters that could be explored further. I love interconnected stand-alone novels. I was always going to write in that style, traditionally published or not, and it was always going to be four books.

People will message me about other characters in the series who have little side stories going on, but I will never write about those people. They have their own love stories, but they’re not meant to be an entire book. I feel like four books rounded it out well. I got to everybody I wanted to get to. I’m looking forward to doing something different. After four books, you’re kind of like, “Get me out of here.” I want to write something new.

Because you’ve spent time building out this universe, readers have wanted Kian’s story for a long time. Did you feel any pressure about delivering a certain kind of book?

People have been talking about Kian in my DMs since Collide. About fifty-percent of my messages are about Kian even after I already told everybody he’s getting a book. So there was pressure.

It’s hard to be in the same space as I was when writing Collide. That book was for me. It wasn’t really for anyone else. And writing this one, or even the second and third ones, I spent a lot of time in my head, worrying people might not like this or that; that people have a certain idea of someone so I should lean into something else more. It kind of takes away from the fun a little bit. But when you’re deep in editing, you remind yourself to screw everything else and write the characters you were meant to write. It came to me a lot later than I expected. I didn’t understand these characters and their motivations for a while. But when I finally did, it really clicked.

Hockey romance has been having a moment this past year. Why do you think that is?

I’ve been a hockey fan for a very long time. I live near the Vancouver Canucks, who aren’t great but you’ve got to root for somebody. I feel like since I’ve been reading hockey romance, which started when Elle Kennedy’s books came out in 2016, I always thought they were popular because in my world they were. Now it just kind of blew up.

I think it’s the fact that it’s an exclusive sport. Not everybody can be an NHL or even a collegiate hockey player. That makes it a little hotter and might be why people love reading about it. Also, I think it’s because people don’t have hockey teams in their schools. It’s not a normal thing, especially in the U.S. Not as many people know about it. It’s a little fantasy for readers.

It’s fun. I know so many people who got into hockey after reading romance books. That’s my favorite part.

Some of the major clubs are embracing it, too, having hockey romance-themed nights at their games.

The Nashville Predators called a few of us romance authors and had a romance night, which was great. They also played one of the scenes from Heated Rivalry on the jumbotron at a game in Vancouver, which really surprised me. I think it’s super cool. I welcome it.

Scarlett and Kian have a ton of chemistry, basically from the very beginning. You’ve gotten so good at creating characters with a strong connection. What do you think is key to doing that?

Weirdly enough, if I come up with a good smut scene in the beginning, before I even start writing, then I know I have their connection down. That’s when I know I’ll have a good time writing them. That’s the most intimate they can be. Getting their dynamic right in that spot kind of translates to everywhere else.

Kian and Scarlett were friends to lovers. I don’t usually write that. I much prefer writing enemies to lovers. I personally love when they hate each other before they end up together. So this was different for me. I liked creating that bond before they got to the end point of being together.

I think the characters sort of speak for themselves. I always say I’m just a vessel with the character on my shoulder.

That’s so fascinating. For me, I feel like my character relationships start with the banter. I sort of struggle to get people to take their clothes off. Maybe that says something about me personally…

I’m with you on the banter. When I’m writing an intimate scene, there is always banter in it. It’s easy for me to use that and move forward.

You definitely write good spicy scenes. They’re fun to read, but they also advance the plot. Do you have any advice for crafting them?

I used to read books and think the smut was just smut. But as I’ve been writing romance myself, I know there’s a lot of prejudice around it. I tend to put a lot of the trust building into the steamy scenes. It’s such a huge moment. People ask me if they can skip them, and I tell them if they do then they’ll miss a lot of plot. It’s not there just for fun.

Making it fun comes down to knowing the characters really well. I do a little analysis of each of my characters before I write the scene. Once you really know them, you can make it fun and balance it with being intimate.

It’s interesting, and kind of funny. Sometimes I need to get into the head of a character, but the character is already literally in my head. It’s a whole web.

This book also tackles grief and having a family member with Alzheimer’s. Why did you choose to include that in the storyline?

From the very beginning, we know Kian’s dad passed away. He’s this happy go lucky character. I always knew he was going to have a kind of sad background, though. Obviously, there had to be something behind his happiness all the time. It was surprising for me how much I delved into the grief, but it just happened. I was in my head and feeling a lot.

This fourth book is way more emotional than all the rest. I wanted to delve more into that aspect of both characters rather than just kind of brushing over it. I was also writing in a time where my life was starting to feel like it was imitating the art that I made. I know that happens for a lot of people. As I was going through some things and seeing how it effected people in my life, seeing how it effected me, putting those things into the book was a way for me to express myself.

My grandma has dementia, and I see my mom reacting to her mom being sick in a really strong way. It makes me think about my future with my mom. It’s so difficult. I know other people in my life are going through the same thing, so I really wanted to write about it. I thought it would humanize it in a different way. I think it’s really good to write about things we see every day that we might not know too much about. When we see it in a book, the emotions on the page make it easier to understand.

You’ve said repeatedly that you won’t be coming back to this universe. Which, fair enough. Tell me about what you will be doing: a cowboy series starting with Last Call.

It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’m excited. It’s another interior, connected, stand-alone series. It is interesting, though. When I started writing this new one, getting into the world was definitely different. I thought about people writing fantasy books. I’m not even doing half that world building and still have so many new characters to figure out. But it’s fun. It’s great to do something new.

People always talk about second generation for hockey romance, which I would love to do. I think it’s difficult, because you have the supposedly amazing parents you wrote about in the previous generation and then you have to write about their kids. Coming up with issues for them could be a challenge. I won’t say never. I do love hockey, so maybe I’ll come back to it.

But I will always stay writing in romance. I can’t even read a book without there being a little romance in it.

Purchase EMBRACE!

Bal Khabra is a Canadian writer and book lover. Before she decided to jump into the romance pool, she spent her time gushing about books on social media. When inspiration strikes, she is found filling her notes app with ideas for romance novels. She loves reading about love, watching movies about love, and now, writing about it herself. There really isn’t much else that gets her heart fluttering the way HEAs do. She fell in love with writing and hopes to continue living out her romance author dreams.